As He Tells It
by simply-aly
Summary: "Let it be said that Nate saw it first." The story of two, as told by Nate Archibald. (Dan/Blair and Nate/Blair)


Let it be said that Nate saw it first. What he saw, he did not know; but he claims later (after the dust settled) that he saw it first.

When they ask, he laughs and shrugs. "I don't know, exactly," he says, "but I saw it long before anyone else knew it was going on—almost before it even happened." He says it nonchalantly, and he means it that way, he always had.

Back before it started, (but sometime after Chuck) Blair had been with Nate. She wanted safety and security. Someone who was stable and wouldn't hurt her. Nate, on the other hand, craved the familiarity but not the passion. He liked who she was in the present (someone who he could take care of) and she liked who she wanted to build him up to be in the future (someone to come home to every night, rings on the proper fingers and everything). Nate, reflecting back, realizes it's no great surprise that, as soon as Blair realized she wasn't going to be able to get the ring from Nate, she went to find someone who would give her the white picket fence, ring on the proper finger, and 2.5 kids.

She strung him along (but Nate will never tell her this) as she searched for the man to fulfill her dreams of a perfect future. She took him to society events and she left with him, but it wasn't him she was with when she was there. She went out drinking with him, but she strayed from him in the end, and he would take her back to her own bed at the end of the night because she couldn't manage herself. If he's being truthful, Nate never really minded, he liked having her around and he loved her, but he wasn't the commitment type and he knew he would love many others later on as well.

"I suppose the first time I thought about it, really thought about it," he says later, "was when you were staying at my place."

Nate shared an apartment with Dan (Chuck was invited too, but claimed he wasn't one for male bonding) and sometime during the beginning of the end, Blair started crashing at their place. Nate had been the one to invite her, but it was Dan that Blair talked to. If you could even call it that.

"You bickered constantly, usually about nothing, and at first I found it funny, but then I got to thinking," Nate tells them. "It was your own way of flirting." From there, it just went downhill. The talking led to common interests, which led to dates, which led to a common interest in each other.

He doesn't know exactly when it was they fell in love with each other. He wasn't around during those moments, so he didn't have a clue. He does know Blair, however, and that gives him some knowledge. Blair wasn't one to do casual anymore (not after Chuck) and Nate knew there were nights when she would come to him at night with bright eyes and messy hair. She wouldn't be with him on those days; but by that time, the days she was with him were so few and far between that he hardly minded. So he knew she was in love with Dan, and he knew Dan was the white picket fence kind of guy, so he was happy for her, but he didn't tell her that.

And Blair loved Nate. She may have been in love with Dan, but she loved Nate too, and she was afraid of breaking his heart. Nate knew Blair well enough to know that she wasn't able to make a decision and that Dan was too much of a gentleman to make it for her, so it fell to Nate. "And then there was that night I walked in on you two." He doesn't tell them that he (took a page out of Chuck's book and) set them up. He may never tell them that. That is his secret.

After that, things snowballed again. Nate wasn't in the loop so much anymore, as Blair had set him free once more. What happened next, then, is simply Blair's fairytale.

A ring given by a guy without commitment issues. A person who will protect her. Someone to come home to, someone stable. A penthouse in the Upper East Side (which he supposes is her equivalent to a house with a white picket fence). And kids.

He had her while he wanted her, but it was Dan that would keep her, and Nate was fine with that. In fact, he may have orchestrated it that way.

(But he'll never tell them that either.)


End file.
